Monthly Archives: December 2004

Black Magic #7 [1975] – “The Cloak” and “Freak!”

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Posted in Genre, Horror/Fantasy.

More reprints from the S&K Prize horror series of the 1950s in this issue. Starting off with the cover, a reprint of the cover to the original #17 (v2#11), a moody piece with one of the classic horror set-pieces, a dark attic, with a chained freak. The 8-page story from that issue, “Freak!”, is reprinted in here, featuring art credited to Kirby/Meskin in the updated Kirby checklist. The Meskin part is heavy, which is probably why the story was missing from earlier Kirby checklists, but the Kirby parts are definitely there, especially in how some of the characters hands are posed. A decent short story, although the cover kind of gives away too much.

Also in this issue is “The Cloak”, a 7 pager from the original BM #2.
This is sort of a modern urban gothic horror story. An unemployed man in Budapest gets a chance at a job, but needs to look good for the occasion. He has one good suit left, and goes out to rent a cloak to wear for it (this is back when men wore cloaks. And hats). It gets delivered to him by a mysterious guy, it has a label “Asmodeus”, and still he doesn’t get the hint. He wears it, and it attempts to kill him several times before he ditches it, giving it to a derelict. Our man Paul then calls the tailor offering to pay for the cloak, and finds out it wasn’t from the tailor, the cloak he ordered is still waiting to be picked up. Now he looks up “Asmodeus”, realizes the guy he gave the cloak is in danger, and tries to save him. He fails, and the cloak vanishes. And that’s it. Dead vagrant, and no idea if Paul got a job.

bm7

A good, if simple, story. And the art just has to be seen. The various accidents that Paul runs into with the cloak are great, like being dragged by a train. And the backgrounds are excellent. I don’t know if Budapest actually looked like this, but it should have.

Published 1975

Upcoming Kirby – Modern Arf

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Posted in Upcoming Kirby.

Amazon has more details on the previously mentioned MODERN ARF from Fantagraphics. It will have a complete Kirby story. To add to the details below, it’s a 5 page story from Harvey’s ALARMING TALES #1, 1957. The bit about not being reprinted isn’t strictly true, but that was just a digest and not that easy to find. The added incentive about it being reprinted from the original art (not clear if it’ll be colour or not, I’d be happy with either) in a large 9×12 format makes this very attractive.

Modern Arf
by Craig Yoe

About the Author
Craig Yoe operates YOE! Studio from a mountaintop castle overlooking the Hudson River with his partner, Clizia Gussoni. YOE! creates toys to theme parks, animation to advertising for MTV, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Microsoft, and MAD Magazine.

Product Description:
An irreverent new journal devoted to the art of the comics.

Modern Arf is the first in a series of volumes in which the award-winning artist and editor, Craig Yoe, explores the unholy marriage of Modern Art and the Funnies in a bombastic and entertaining way.

The first blast features material created just for this book as well as classic material by Rube Goldberg, Jack Kirby, Hy Mayer, Winsor McCay, and Patrick McDonnell at the zenith of their wacky, surreal, and innovative best.

Patrick McDonnell rarely draws outside popular daily strip Mutts, but for the first volume of Arf he has contributed an exclusive four page strip of of surreal comics. They’re fun, they’re cool, they’re wordless, and they’re sublime.

Jack Kirby’s story, “The Fourth Dimension is a Many Splattered Thing,” reprinted from the original art, is Kirby at his most surreal, surely informed by cubism and certainly the inspiration for Steve Ditko’s later work on the exotic 1960s comic, Dr. Strange. It is published here for the first time since its original publication in the mid 1950s.

Hy Mayer, a forgotten cartoon surrealist, is represented with an astonishing series of mind-blowing “worm’s eye views.” It’s M.C. Escher meets Charles Schulz! Antonio Rubino is an early 20th century Italian cartooning master, whose breathtaking work was infused by cubism, futurism and art deco. Modern Arf will present a rich sampling of his work, including bookplates, paintings, and comics.

Did you know Salvador Dalí drew comics? You’ll be able to see them in this first volume of Modern Arf accompanying an essay exploring his influence on comics, his animated cartoon, and examples of comic artists such as Steranko and Crepax who paid homage to the Spanish surrealist. Modern Arf is stunningly designed in an oversized format to give justice to the incredible art collected between its covers. The Arf series will delight both comic and fine art lovers. Both will be sure to exclaim, “I don’t know much about Arf, but this is what I like!” 120 pages black-and-white illustrations throughout and 48 pages in full color, 9″ x 12″.

Buried Treasure #2 [1986] – “Inky” – proposed comic strip

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Posted in Genre, Romance.

In the late 1940s, while they were working on the successful line of romance comics, Simon&Kirby put together a six week proposal for a comic strip, Inky, featuring cartoonist Inky Spotts and his struggles to establish himself. The strip didn’t sell, although a few years later they did make use of parts of it for the romance comic IN LOVE #3. In 1986, Greg Theakston published BURIED TREASURE v1#2 and included the 36 strips in nine pages.

The story is incomplete, unfortunately, just the first chapter in a longer story. As it begins, Inky is an assistant to a successful older cartoonist, who dies (killing his character in the process). After that he tries to pitch his own strip, but while he’s technically good the syndicate editor says his work lacks soul. Eventually he gets suckered into working with Donna Dreame, a society columnist who plans to use him to make a fortune (in comics?), but passes off a stolen concept as her own. As the six-week sample closes, Inky has a confrontation with the editor, who knows the strip was stolen and wants to find out who’s responsible.

I’m not sure I can disagree with the syndicates for not buying, since I have trouble seeing the set-up, at least based on what was done, holding up a strip for the years that would be required for a daily strip after the initial storyline was over. How many action-filled adventures could you credibly put a cartoonist into? Still, it would have made a good extended opening story, and the art is spectacular.

inky1 inky2

Also in this issue, a short essay with quotes from Joe Simon about the history of romance comics, plus a colour backcover with the cover of IN LOVE #3 reprinted. Non-Kirby work includes reprints of Alex Toth and Bill Ward comics.

Published 1986

More 1970s Marvel covers

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Posted in Gallery.

JUNGLE ACTION #18, 1975. Klaus Janson inks, which works better than I expected (but then I’m mostly familiar with Janson from a few years later). This is shortly before Kirby would re-claim the character for his solo series.

AVENGERS, THE #148, 1976. Al Milgrom inks, and Kirby’s chance to draw the Squadron Supreme. I’m kind of disappointed they didn’t get Murphy Anderson to re-draw Hyperion’s face…

THOR #250, 1976. Joe Sinnott inks. Ah, Balder, Sif, the Warriors Three and Mangog. That’s some good stuff. Makes me very grateful that Marvel got Kirby to draw all these covers in the 1970s.



Devil Dinosaur #1 [1978]

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Posted in Genre, Science Fiction.

Ah, one of Kirby’s final contributions to the Marvel Universe, Devil Dinosaur and Moon-Boy. The brief nine-issue run of the book, ending when Kirby left Marvel to devote his time to animation, is often maligned, mostly by those who haven’t read it. Certainly I didn’t really approach it with any expectations when I got around to getting the back issues. Turns out it’s a fun adventure comic, where Kirby was free to let his imagination roam, with some genuine heart. One of the charming things about Kirby comics is his almost complete lack of pretension and his obvious enthusiasm for the work, which manages to sell some of the wildest concepts that wouldn’t work with less.

In this debut issue, we meet Devil Dinosaur, a bright red dino, presumably a T. Rex (although Kirby wisely doesn’t use actual dino names for most of the series), and his young companion, Moon-Boy of the Small-Folk, residents of the dangerous Valley of Flame, a heavily volcanic area. After a battle with Thunder-Horn, Moon-Boy remembers how he first met Devil, when the Killer-Folk killed Devil’s family and seared his flesh, and they rescued each other. After that, Moon-Boy’s people fled in fear of Devil, while the Killer-Folk plot revenge.

This all works a lot better in comics form, of course, and later issues got even weirder, as Kirby threw in science-fiction concepts with wild abandon.

Devil Dinosaur #1 [1978]

Mike Royer inks the story, Frank Giacoia inks the cover and Kirby also writes a text page introducing the series.

Published 1978

A DC Universe Christmas [2000]

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Posted in Genre, Superhero.

DC did a collection of Christmas stories a few years ago, including this 10-page S&K reprint from ADVENTURE #82, “Santa Fronts For The Mob”

santa

Some mobsters get the questionably great idea to hire a wrestler to play Santa at a mall in order to rob the place. Fortunately, the wrestler finds the Christmas spirit and helps out Sandman and Sandy in the end. A light but decent holiday story.

Published 2000

The Best Of DC #22 [1982] – The Seal-Men’s War on Santa Claus

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Posted in Genre, Superhero.

This story was originally intended for SANDMAN #7 in 1975, before that series was cancelled. A few years later it was uncomfortably squeezed into an issue of KAMANDI, which was cancelled before that issue, and only “published” in the photocopied CANCELLED COMIC CAVALCADE #2 in 1978. Finally, in 1982, it was included in this digest of Christmas stories.

Santa is unusually sarcastic on the last panel of this page:

sandman

Like all 1970s Sandman stories by Michael Fleisher, it doesn’t make much sense except in a dream-logic kind of way. In this one, Sandman’s young friend Jed gets a rich man to promise to give a million dollars to charity if he can prove Santa Claus exists. Jed enlists Sandman’s help, and it turns out he’s a friend of Santa, so they head off to the North Pole, pursued by the rich man’s nephew, who isn’t about to see his inheritance given away. At the North Pole, they find Santa has been kidnapped by the usually friendly Seal-Men, and go to rescue him, finding out that the Seal-Men were upset at the Christmas gifts they were getting, such as gloves (useless with flippers). They accept an apology for the mix-up, then Santa and Sandman take care of the evil nephew and everyone has a Merry Christmas.

Mike Royer inks the 18 page story.

Published 1982

Giant-Size Spider-Man #1 [1974] – On The Trail Of The Amazing Spider-Man

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Posted in Genre, Superhero.

This issue of GIANT-SIZE SPIDER-MAN has what is still the only semi-decent reprint of the 18-page lead story from STRANGE TALES ANNUAL #2 (1963), an early team-up of the Human Torch and Spider-Man pencilled by Kirby and inked by Steve Ditko (there is a reprint of it in the recent ESSENTIAL HUMAN TORCH, but it’s a pretty splotchy reprint, unlike most of that book. The text page of this issue, which explains how the promised SUPER-GIANT 100 page line became the GIANT-SIZE 68 page line, mentions that they’d “only recently located the blamed artwork” for this story, so I guess they lost it again in the interim).

In this story an art thief, The Fox, decides to frame Spider-Man for the theft of a newly discovered da Vinci piece. Spidey goes to the Torch for help in clearing his name, just as the police call the Torch to ask if he can help capture Spidey. So of course they fight. Then, in the plot twist heard around the world, they team-up. Their meeting on top of the Statue of Liberty:

gssm1

is one of the classic moments of the Marvel Universe. Ditko’s inks as usual complement Kirby’s pencils nicely, and keep Spidey looking on model perfectly as well. That last panel on the page above is excellent.

It’s a fun story, one that hopefully will see a decent modern reprint at some point (it would be a natural for the upcoming MARVEL MILESTONES series, especially with the upcoming Spidey/Torch team-up mini-series).

Published 1974

Tales of Suspense #36 [1962] – Cover

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Posted in Genre, Horror/Fantasy.

Here’s a nice late 1962 cover, from shortly before all of the Atlas fantasy books were taken over by the super-heroes. Very pretty cover, I like the police-officer and the car. Inker unknown, but some speculation down in the comments that it might be one of the Kirby inked covers of the era. The interior art for this story is by Don Heck.

TalesofSuspense36_176.jpg

Where Monsters Dwell #27 [1974]

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Posted in Genre, Horror/Fantasy, Superhero.

A Kirby/Ayers reprint spectacular issue of WMD this time. First up is a reprint of “From Out of the Black Pit Came… Grogg”, from STRANGE TALES #83. Note that his reprint seems to have some lettering changes from the original. I’m guessing the “small dictatorship in central Europe” was more explicitly the USSR first time around. Anyway, a freedom-loving scientist is captured in said dictatorship, and forced or work on a bomb test in Asia. The test ends up waking up Grogg, who seems to be the bigger, non-speaking brother of Fin Fang Foom. The scientist eventually manages to escape to America, leaving Grogg to take care of the commies, and we find out that he knew about Grogg, and it turns out he knew about Grogg, and he had earlier found proof that the Great Wall of China was built to keep out dragons. Who knew? Very cool panel of a bunch of monsters attacking the wall. Grogg’s a very fun looking monster, so much so that he’s one of the handful of the monsters to get a sequel, four issues later.

Where Monsters Dwell #27 [1974]

Also in this issue, “Follow the Leader” from JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #76, which has a story that would have fit in Kirby’s 1950s sci-fi work like RACE FOR THE MOON (and some of the art looks a lot like the Kirby/Ayers SKY MASTERS strips), with a group of explorers finding a planet that turns out to be populated by a variety of monsters. Over the protests of the peace-loving member of the expedition, they kill the lead monster, only to find out that he was the only thing keeping the other monsters in check, so they flee the planet.

The cover is from the Kirby/Ayers cover of STRANGE TALES #83, with a bunch of figures added clinging to and falling from Grogg’s hands. It’s kind of weird, since some of the figures don’t seem like the kind you’d find in the Chinese countryside (like the blonde woman in a green mini-skirt and heels).

Published 1974